助成 Institute for International Policy Studies ・Tokyo・ IIPS International Conference “A New Horizon for Japan’s Security Policy —Basic Concept and Framework” Tokyo, November 30 and December 1, 2004 “Redefining Japan’s Security Profile: International Security, Human Security, and an East Asian Community” By Dr. Yoshihide Soeya Professor of Political Science Faculty of Law Keio University Japan Redefining Japan’s Security Profile: International Security, Human Security, and an East Asian Community Yoshihide Soeya Professor of Political Science Faculty of Law, Keio University, Tokyo Prepared for Session 3: “How Japan can Contribute to a Peaceful World” An International Symposium on A New Horizon for Japan’s Security Policy - Basic Concept and Framework - Sponsored by the Institute for International Policy Studies November 30 – December 1, 2004 ANA Hotel, Tokyo Introduction The demise of the Cold War and domestic changes associated with the collapse of the 1955 regime have released the Japanese from some of the long-standing post-War taboos, including the debate on the revision of the Article of the postwar Constitution. In addition, security threats posed by a series of North Korean provocations, such as intrusion by spy ships, the launch of the Teapodon missile, and the abduction of Japanese citizens, have steadily aroused Japanese consciousness about its own national security. Under these circumstances, many external observers have seen Japan’s growing eagerness to play an active security role in the post-Cold War era as reflecting its ambition to become a “normal” great power, including in the military domain. Along this line of argument, many characterize the nature of Japan’s changes as a move toward the “right,” and predict an intensifying Sino-Japanese rivalry, both economic and geopolitical, as a central component of an East Asian order in coming decades. The net effect of this phenomenon, however, has been mixed at best. This paper argues that a most conspicuous change in Japan’s foreign and security policy since the end of the Cold War has occurred in three forms/domains: deeper engagement in international security, the rise of human security, and the most recent case of renewed interest in regional integration and community building. Domestic changes in Japan’s foreign policy parameters, although some of which may indeed be associated with the surge of nationalism of a kind, have in effect prompted Japanese deeper 1 engagement in these regional and global affairs. Of particular importance in the Japanese context is the persistent strength of “pacifism” as the most critical reference point informing the content and the policy-making process of security policy. After the end of the Cold War, Japan’s postwar pacifism has come under challenges from two fronts. First, the domain of traditional security has increased prominence, if only relatively, in Japanese security policy. Second, even liberals in the Japanese society have begun to question the wisdom of postwar pacifism by criticizing it as “one-country pacifism” and to argue for somewhat proactive pacifism. In essence, the combined effect of these two general changes in the post-Cold War context of Japanese security policy is important in understanding why international and human security have taken firm root in Japanese foreign policy. For one thing, increased prominence of traditional security does not suggest by any means that traditional security concerns have come to dominate Japanese thinking and policy. It is a new addition, and not a replacement of anything, in Japan’s comprehensive approach to security, which, for some policy experts, should have been given due attention long time ago. True, this new addition of traditional security has placed Japanese postwar pacifists on the defensive. This phenomenon, however, did not cause the eradication of pacifist elements, but rather the evolution of postwar pacifism into a new type of proactive pacifism with an internationalist bent. Greater participation in international peace keeping operations, the rise of human security, and renewed attention to regional community building are clear cases of this internationalist pacifism of post-Cold War Japan. This is in parallel with, not despite, the somewhat natural rise of traditional security concerns against the North Korean threat as an explicit and immediate worry and the rise of China as a rather implicit and long-term concern. Awakening to International Security In the domain of international security, the 1991 Gulf War became a critical turning point awakening the Japanese government to the new realities after the end of the Cold War. The absolute humiliation resulting from the Japanese government’s incapacity, other than through “checkbook diplomacy,” to contribute to multinational 2 efforts to defeat Iraq was a central driving force behind the enactment of the International Peace Cooperation Law (PKO Law) in June 1992. The passage of the law enabled the Japanese government to dispatch its Self-Defense Force (SDF) to the peace-keeping operations under the United Nations Transitional Authorities in Cambodia (UNTAC), which was followed by a series of dispatches of the SDF troops to a number of other UN PKOs including those in Zaire, Mozambique, the Golan Heights, and East Timor1. As Japan was making this significant engagement in international security for the first time after the end of the World War II, the monopoly of power by the LDP was broken in August 1993 with the birth of the Hosokawa government. When the desperate LDP came back to power with the Socialist Party head Murayama as Prime Minister of an LPD-led coalition government in June 1994, Murayama recognized the constitutionality of SDF and the legitimacy of the U.S.-Japan alliance, thus destroying his party’s long-standing raison-d’etre. This led to the catastrophic demise of the Socialist Party, and the collapse of the so-called 1955 regime. The demise of the leftist-pacifist political forces in domestic politics has changed the context of political discourse on security matters in a significant way. Most importantly, it lifted long-standing taboos in the debate about national and international security, including the issue of the Article Nine of the Japanese postwar constitution. Opinion polls indicate that in the 1990s many Japanese came to support the revision of the Article Nine because they felt that it prohibits Japan from “international contribution” such as participation in UN PKO.2 The development in the direction of deeper engagement in international security has been systematic and steady, while responses in the domain of traditional national security have been sporadic. After all, the emphasis in the Ichiro Ozawa’s theory of Japan as a “normal country” was also placed more on Japan’s participation in international peace-keeping efforts than anything else. While encouraging Japanese deeper participation in international security, new regional and global security challenges after the end of the Cold War also caused 1 L. William Heinrich, Akiho Shibata and Yoshihide Soeya, United National Peace-keeping Operations: A Guide to Japanese Policies (Tokyo, New York, Paris: United Nations University Press, 1999). 2 Yoshihide Soeya, “Japan: Normative Constraints Versus Structural Imperatives,” Muthiah Alagappa, ed., Asian Security Practice: Material and Ideational Influences (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998). 3 the re-affirmation of the US-Japan alliance. The new Defense Program Outline, revised in November 1995, stressed, among others, a new role of SDF in international peace-keeping efforts, and an important role of the U.S.-Japan alliance in these endeavors.3 Along this line of logic, the “US-Japan Joint Declaration on Security,” signed by Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and President Bill Clinton in April 1996, declared that “the Japan-U.S. security relationship …… remains the cornerstone for achieving common security objectives, and for maintaining a stable and prosperous environment for the Asia-Pacific region as we enter the twenty-first century.”4 And yet, the 9.11 has opened up a new chapter for Japan’s coping with international security. Soon after the 9.11, the support of the international community for the United States was unmistakable. China agreed to the UN Security Council resolution allowing the U.S.-led multinational forces to engage in a war in Afghanistan, which became the first instance where China voted for the use of force by UN members against a sovereign state.5 Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi also supported the United States unequivocally. This was a natural act from the standpoint of Japanese engagement in international security whose momentum has been steadily on the rise in the 1990s. In fact, the anti-terrorism measures law, enacted speedily to dispatch Japanese SDF to logistical support in the Indian Ocean in the event of a war in Afghanistan, was legitimized in the name of the United Nations Charter and the relevant UN Security Council resolutions, and not the U.S.-Japan alliance.6 Here, the lesson from the 1991 Gulf War experiences was clearly at work. The nightmare for the Japanese government was to repeat “checkbook diplomacy.” Politically, the U.S. factor was not insignificant in the mind of central decision-makers, particularly Prime Minister Koizumi. In the end, it was fortunate for the Japanese government that the support for the United States did not contradict contribution to 3 “National Defense Program Outline in and after FY 1996,”